It is a great honour for me to join you at the Salon de la Radio. This annual meeting is testimony to the extraordinary vitality of the French media sector, and particularly radio. I have many opportunities to appreciate this myself, since I am living very close to France, and often cross the border.  

This is my first time in Paris since the tragic attacks in November. When the events started, my wife and I were enjoying a pleasant, quiet evening in Grenoble. In the midst of such a complex emerging situation, on the Friday evening and over the entire weekend, the professionalism of the media in keeping people informed was really impressive. It is precisely in such moments that we are reminded why a strong, efficient and dedicated media infrastructure is vital.   

The UNESCO World Radio Day this year on February 13^th has the important theme of radio in disaster recovery situations. Clearly, we all hope that this is needed only rarely, however, having information which you can trust, easily available, is all the more important in difficult times. I would argue that radio is well adapted to this task. Various situations, including the Fukushima disaster and even recent winter floods in the UK, have shown that having a portable device, independent of the electricity supply, operating on batteries, is absolutely essential.  Radio is flexible, portable, local, and can be produced cheaply and swiftly, and – in troubled, dangerous situations - discretely, transmitting quality audio from an iPhone is perfectly possible.   

We live in an increasingly complex world and one where the need for rational, thoughtful interpretation of events is absolutely essential. Not only that, the debates we hear every day on radio demonstrate that a plurality of views within society is possible, and that discussion exemplifies the respectful disagreement on which our societies are founded.  For this reason, I believe that public media is more relevant than ever, in its aspiration to reach and engage with the entire population, providing a focal point for coming together for great events of national importance, from sports to celebrations to elections.  

In essence, this is creating the national dialogue. At the BBC, I remember being presented with the detailed analysis of the UK population into specific demographic and interest groups, and the joke which a colleague made, saying, ‘OK, we’ve decided on the groups, now we just need to decide how to target all of them!’ Yes, it’s a joke, because there are different priorities, but clearly the societal role of public media is clearly broader than concentrating on serving those who are our natural constituency. Like me today, addressing you in French, public media is obliged to step outside its comfort zone, and ask itself whether the entire population is actually receiving enough value from its services.  Answering this question will inevitably involve consideration of the young, special interest groups, minority communities, and the less well educated. In order to maintain engagement with all audience groups, actual and potential, radio needs to be seen as a contemporary medium, and one which offers services sufficiently targeted to individual needs. I remember with excitement having my first pocket transistor radio for Christmas – listening opened up a new world, and it seemed really cool at the time. We need to recapture that sense of cool.

So let me therefore come to the subject of DAB, and say how much I welcome the clear timetable for the implementation here in France published at the end of last year. This is very good news, since for many reasons, including those scenarios mentioned above, having a modern terrestrial broadcast network is vital.  While there can be broader societal reasons for implementation, nonetheless, to become successful, audience engagement is essential.  Many publications and conference presentations about DAB have concerned themselves with the technical aspects of the service, percentage coverage in various areas, both in major cities and along motorways. Indeed, the early marketing of DAB was focussed on providing better broadcast quality. It was difficult to convince the public that the sound that emerged from their current analogue radios was inadequate, and this approach eventually failed.  At the WorldDAB General Assembly in November, I was aiming to change the direction of the discussion, by putting audience and audience needs at the centre. In a moment of enthusiasm, I proposed that we should think of DAB not as Digital Audio Broadcasting, but as Delivering Audience Benefits. I am not certain that I can manage a similar acronym in French with RNT – ‘réseau nouvelles themes/tendences’ was the best that I could do. But at least it sounds like something active, something engaging audiences, drawing listeners into this contemporary réseau, and offering new opportunities.  Only by putting audiences at the centre – Delivering Audience Benefits - will the situation move forwards.

Across Europe, there are many listeners who are already enjoying the benefits of DAB channels, providing them with new listening opportunities and catering for their specific tastes, taking advantage of the spectrum efficiency which DAB offers. Our colleagues in Bavaria have even created a radio with pre-set buttons for their BR stations. When I started to research this, it came as a surprise to realise that there are currently around seventy digital-only stations, a substantial part of the portfolio of around 250 DAB/DAB+ channels run by EBU members.  And there has been a steady development in these launches, except for a slowdown, perhaps associated with the onset of economic difficulties in around 2008.  The countries represented in the list cover most of the European areas, and a wide variety of genres. Children’s programming, along with news and sport, and – predominantly – music has been the major areas to benefit.  Music presents itself, of course, across a vast spectrum of genres and tastes, and listeners have been finding the place to explore their interests further. 

Within the framework of DAB, and the resources of public broadcasting, audiences expect more than from commercial streaming services, non-stop audio designed to serve well-defined niches. They expect the curation and intelligent commentary they associate with public service media, the opportunity to hear and learn new things, and the repertory broad enough to stimulate their curiosity. That is why DAB can provide an intermediate offer, between the limited channels of the analogue world and the multiplicity of digital streaming services, while remaining faithful to the public service principle. Already, there are channels dedicated to jazz, alternative musics, Black music, nostalgia music from the 1950s and -60s, Norwegian folk music, Schlager, and of course classical.  Of course, allowing new entrants will create a more vibrant sector in general. Many new channels, both public and private, will be reaching audiences who previously saw themselves as underserved by existing options, and therefore these developments are essential to developing and maintaining their loyalty. 

Having said that I want to place audiences at the centre, I want in conclusion to touch briefly on another issue which arises in our complicated world, digital sabotage and hacking. The denial of service which the BBC website experienced at the New Year shows that we need to be extremely careful before committing to IP only. Hacking radio is not really possible, in the way that destructive people can inhibit the delivery of websites. This might well become increasingly important in the future; a major IP outage, with no other information source would indeed be the nightmare scenario.

But let me end on a more positive note. As I said, I really welcome the timetable you set out here in France for DAB implementation.  Indeed, it came as part of a wave of DAB positive news around the end of last year:  

·         The Dutch are adding new stations to their portfolio

·         The Turkish PSB started broadcasting five stations on DAB in Istanbul.

·         Slovakia started trial transmission of their PSB programmes

·         The new Flemish Government agreement with VRT makes DAB central to making radio contemporary.

Naturally, I have emphasised the role of public media, and I have strong beliefs about the importance of its very special role. However, in closing, I would like to say something about this important meeting, bringing together public and private radios.  Clearly, all players want to have listeners, and therefore we should be competing strongly on content. However, when it comes to technology, collaboration between public and private radio is the only option – only this will create the dynamic, contemporary industry sector in which radio can all flourish. 

Audiences, their expectations continually being raised by the internet, will expect services aligned with the tastes and interested, delivered when they want, and using devices which are convenient to them. For this reason, the development – hopefully in our shops soon – of a smartphone with a DAB chip is something really important. Also the data possibilities of digital and hybrid are absolutely crucial – people are too impatient to wait for 30 minutes to know who is speaking of what music is being played.  Without great content, we would never be where we are today. But in the future, I offer the challenge that, however excellent our content might be, that may not be sufficient to retain our strong position in the audio market place. It will need to take full advantage of the newest means of delivery, data management, and develop some elements of personalisation. Here, hybrid radio, combining terrestrial audio delivery with internet elements may provide the solution.  Whatever precise path our different organisations take, our priority must be the development of radio as a contemporary medium.   If English, I often say ‘making radio modern’. Of course, we need to provide exceptional, distinctive content – that is for certain. When it comes to distribution, organisations may differ in how to serve their audiences, and we may use even find ourselves technologies that we still cannot imagine, but standing still is not an option. We will gather dust very quickly! We need to benefit from the new possibilities in order to serve audiences in ways they will find compelling and engaging.